


Fireball

by WakeUpDreaming



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Alcohol, Drinking Games, F/M, Gen, Halloween, Secret Relationship, tomfoolery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 07:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5120063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakeUpDreaming/pseuds/WakeUpDreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Walter's complaints and Paige's worrying end up permeating the Halloween spirit, Toby and Happy turn it into a drinking game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireball

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings for cultural appropriation (not by any of our characters but instead in a non-character's Halloween costume), alcohol use, vomiting, and the song Fireball by Pitbull.

“I’m just worried about him,” Paige says for the third time in five minutes. “It’s his first time trick or treating without me.” She looks over at Walter, Cabe, and Sylvester as if for help. Like they would know how to solve this issue. “And only his second sleep over – what if he gets scared?”

“Mom, I can hear you,” Ralph says, his Einstein wig flopping over his eye. Paige rushes to fix it.

“She is having some serious separation anxiety,” Toby says as he walks next to Happy. “Like, bad.”

“I know,” Happy says, a little worried. “Ralph seems ready to go but she’s all jittery.” The two of them lean on Happy’s work table as they watch Paige fuss and fret over Ralph’s costume as Ralph just rolls his eyes and messes his hair up more. “I’ve got an idea.”

Toby’s eyebrows rise. “I like your ideas.”

Happy rolls her eyes. “Don’t be weird.” She nods downward to a cabinet in her work bench. “I’ve got Fireball in there. Every time Paige freaks out about Ralph or Walter brings up some factual inaccuracy or problem with a kid’s costume, we drink.”

“Like, drink a sip or take a shot?” Toby asks.

Happy grins at him. “What, you scared?”

Toby takes his hat off and sets it on the table. “Is this a challenge?”

“Are we playing the questions game?” Happy asks. “Because yeah, apparently it is a challenge.” Happy pulls two shot glasses out of nowhere – she feels a little gleeful at the look of sheer surprise on Toby’s face – and fills them. “You game?”

Toby takes off his tie, rolls up his sleeves, and unbuttons the top button of his shirt. “Prepare to lose, Quinn.”

Their first shot happens literally seconds after Ralph’s friend arrives at the door. “Honey, be safe!” Paige calls. “You – you and Bobby keep an eye on those cars! And carry the glow sticks out in front of you!”

“Shot,” Toby mutters. Happy pours each of them some Fireball, and they look around discretely before knocking their drinks back.

“Whoo!” Toby says. “That’s strong.”

“It’s pure liquor,” Happy says, staring at him. “Of course it’s strong.”

“I meant,” says Toby, “the cinnamon flavoring.”

Happy nods slowly. “Sure you did.”

Paige walks back into the garage and sits on the couch. Toby and Happy, half heartedly playing the game of chess they’re using as a cover.

Paige frets about Ralph half an hour later, and thirty minutes after that Walter full on lectures a child in a rocket costume about how it would never fly.

“Good lord,” Happy says, “imagine how annoying he would be if someone came up in a superhero costume. He’d go on and on about how the physics involved are impossible.”

Toby stands straight and adjusts a nonexistent tie. “Actually,” he says, his voice mildly snobby, “there is no way gamma radiation would affect a personality. Instead they would disrupt the body’s processes and kill the person in question.”

Happy laughs and then snorts. Toby looks positively elated.

“You just snorted!” he exclaims.

Walter looks over at them. “I have never seen you two this excited over a chess game.”

“Doc here just suggested he could beat me,” Happy says, feeling a bit smug about Toby’s affronted expression. “I thought it was an adorably inaccurate idea.”

“Do you people just willfully forget the fact that I was in med school as a kid? I’m smart too, you know!”

“You just keep telling yourself that, honey,” says Happy, patting Toby’s cheek. He swats her hand away, but he winks at her and squeezes her hand once it drops below the table.

“Stop being cheesy,” Happy says, not meaning it.

There is a string where kids come to the door and Happy gives them candy. The little girl dressed as a welder is her personal favorite, whereas Toby has a field day with the boy dressed as a nerd.

“Walter, come look at this!” Toby exclaims. “The kid looks just like we do!”

Time passes without alcohol. And then a little girl walks up to the door with a Native American headdress on, and Happy and Toby wince simultaneously.

“That’s not cool,” Happy says, a little horrified.

“Oh,” says Paige once she realizes that Walter’s the one receiving kids at the door. “Oh, this is not good.”

“That is,” Walter says, “incredibly appropriative.”

“What’s a propritive?” the elementary schooler asks. She can’t be more than seven, and can’t possibly be the one who was in charge of outfits, but she’s about to be read the riot act by a genius with no concept of boundaries.

“Go ask your mother,” Walter snaps, dropping candy into her pumpkin, “and next time don’t use a group of people as a costume, okay?” The girl’s mother looks horrified as Walter closes the door, but Happy honestly is glad that somebody called the mom out for that kind of ridiculousness.

“Well that could have been handled a little better,” Toby says.

“He’s not wrong,” Happy mutters, “but drink number four.” It’s been an hour, but still, it’s hitting her.

She’s starting to get a little buzzed now, a little warm, and she shrugs off her jacket slowly. She pretends she doesn’t feel Toby’s eyes on her, but what’s the point of doing a secret test-run of dating someone if you don’t get to tease them a little bit?

He’s subtle, too, apparently. He slides his hand to Happy’s back in an action smoother than she thought he was capable of.

“You’re getting tipsy,” he singsongs, his lips near her ear.

“A, shut up,” Happy says, trying to keep her cool, “B, so are you.”

Toby smiles, sliding his hands further up Happy’s shirt. His hands are cold and Happy jumps and shivers at the touch. But she lets him keep his hand there, if only to let him think it doesn’t affect her.

“Only a little bit,” Toby says.

“Guys?” Paige asks, looking confused.

They spring apart. “Yeah, what?” Happy says.

“You both look a little,” she points to the two of them, “pink.”

“I’m frequently pink,” says Toby, “my complexion –”

Paige shuts him up with a look. Happy wasn’t even talking and she feels chastened.

She stalks over to the two of them. “You’re playing another one of your stupid drinking games again,” she says, “and I want in. I’m really worried about Ralph and he’s staying at a friends’ so it’s all out tonight.”

Happy can’t resist a glance at Toby.

“Oh, come on, you two drink whenever I worry about Ralph? That’s –” She stops herself and sighs. “That’s a pretty good drinking game.”

“It’s also whenever Walter rages about a costume,” Happy offers as consolation.

Paige considers this for a minute. “Take me out and add in whenever Walter steals a candy, and I’m in.”

Happy grins. “You’re on.”

~

Walter steals three Twix bars in the next five minutes. Happy hasn’t recovered from shot number six by the time she’s taking number seven, so she sways a little bit as she knocks it back. Toby presses a hand in between her shoulder blades to steady her.

“You know,” Paige says, “you guys are really obvious, but it’s cute. Keep on doing your thing, lovenerds.”

“The phrase is lovebirds,” Happy says.

“Did you hear a word of what she just said?” Toby asks. “I would have expected you to have been way more freaked out by that.”

Happy turns to him. “Huh?”

“I know about you two,” Paige says bluntly. Happy can’t help but notice that she’s holding her liquor pretty well for someone who never has time to drink. It’s probably because she’s so tall, Happy decides.

“Wait, what did you say?!” Happy asks.

“She knows,” Toby says, “about us.”

“Because you two are about as opaque as a window,” Paige says with a smile, and it would be condescending if she wasn’t so nice about it. “I won’t say anything to anyone. But you’re cute.”

“We’re fucking adorable,” Happy grumbles in response. When she looks up, Toby is doing a terrible job of trying not to laugh.

“Yes,” Paige says, “you are.” She grins at them and walks over to Sly and Cabe, who are playing their third intense game of Battleship.

“Hey! Check it out!” Walter says from the door. “This kid is – he’s wearing a brontosaurus costume.” He laughs hysterically. “They don’t even exist.”

Happy and Toby take shots in tandem, then Happy fills one that Paige swings over and takes once Walter’s not looking.

After the child leaves, Walter steals a Reese’s Cup and Toby groans so loudly that everyone looks over at him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Cabe asks, expression half concern and half amusement.

“Just – Walter steals so much candy.” Happy watches Toby’s face crumple, and he drops his face into his arms.

“We can buy more,” Walter says, clearly confused. “I don’t understand the problem.”

“Walter, you’re a drinking game,” Paige says bluntly. “Because you can’t shut up about kids’ costumes and you eat all of our candy.” Everybody else turns to look at her. “What? I’m honest when I drink.”

“That you are,” Happy agrees. “We have had many shorts. Shots. Many shots.”

“That’s pretty clear,” Cabe says.

“Yeah, neither of you are allowed around children for a while,” Sylvester says. “Go upstairs.”

“What?!” Toby exclaims. “What about Paige?”

“Paige,” says Paige, “is an adult who isn’t getting handsy and giggling all over another person.”

Happy takes in what she said for a minute only to realize that she’s got her hand on Toby’s stomach and Toby’s hand is on her ass.

“I see your point,” Happy says. She removes her hand from Toby and Toby’s hand from her.

“Oh, wow,” Toby says, swaying where he stands. “I think the drinking game has bested me.”

They climb the stairs at a pace a snail would find humiliating, and it feels like a lifetime.

“These seem steeper than I remember,” Toby comments.

Happy nods as she reaches the top of the stairs and stretches out on the floor. Walter’s got a couch upstairs, but it’s a little farther away than Happy wants to move.

“You’re in the way,” Toby says.

Happy pats the floor beside her. “Don’t really care. Come sit here.”

Toby looks like he’s considering an argument, but instead he just sighs and lays down next to her.

“Can we make out now?” Happy asks, propping herself up on her elbow. “Not to be an asshole, but that’s one of the things we couldn’t do when we were sneaking around, and now I really don’t care who sees.”

Toby laughs. “You do whatever you want to me, with me. I’m good with whatever.”

Happy rolls over and kisses him. His lips taste like cinnamon fire and his beard scratches at her cheeks. He turns her so that she’s on top of him, his fingertips threading through her hair.

She breaks away after a few moments, her head swimming a lot more than it had been before.

“Uh oh,” she says, frowning. She sits on the floor. “Oh, fuck.”

“Are you making some sort of joke related to kissing me?” Toby asks.

“Nope,” says Happy, trying to debate with herself how long a run it is to the bathroom, “nope, this is the Fireball.”

She dashes down the stairs and Toby follows close behind. Right before she darts into the bathroom she sees Walter, Sly, and Cabe giggling at the computer.

The second she starts turning her stomach over, they start playing the song Toby listened to for months after it came out. “Fireball” by Pitbull.

“Fuck off, guys,” she groans. Toby holds her hair and strokes her back.

Happy considers throwing the plunger at them, but Paige brings her and Toby two giant glasses of water, so Happy decides revenge can happen in the morning. After all, it’s all Walter’s fault for stealing all the candy.

“To be completely honest,” he says, “I’m not feeling so hot either.”

“It’s the cinnamon,” Happy argues, “not the alcohol.”

“Oh, honey,” Toby says sympathetically, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You just keep telling yourself that.”

In less than five minutes, though, it’s Happy’s turn to sympathetically rub Toby’s back.

“Oh, I regret it all,” Toby says. “I’ll never drink again.”

Happy laughs as she drinks the water Paige gave. “Oh honey,” Happy says, “you just keep telling yourself that.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you've never taken shots of Fireball, you can't understand how they feel. If you've ever taken shots of Fireball, you understand how my New Year's Eve went last year.
> 
> Fireball by Pitbull : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMqgVXSvwGo


End file.
